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Thursday, 15 October 2015

“Policy academics are cheap dates.” One of my mentors,
professor Aiden Vining, loved saying that. His point was that we policy
academics will gladly pay for our own dinner if we think that a politician, of any political stripe, wants our
advice. This explains why, in my 30 years of climate policy research, I have willingly
advised Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Greens, sometimes when in power,
sometimes in opposition. Once, a politician actually paid for my dinner – at
McDonalds.

I have learned some things that are relevant to this federal
election. One lesson is that climate policy is really, really hard. Our
political system has strong incentives for politicians not to implement effective climate policies. To be effective, policies
must either price CO2 emissions or regulate CO2-causing fuels and technologies.
These compulsory policies impose short-term
costs (real and perceived) on some people, some of whom will wage war on the
guilty politician. As in all wars, truth is the first casualty: the climate
policy and its implementing politician will be blamed for completely unrelated
misfortunes by these people, powerful backers, and a media that loves attacking
politicians.

Saturday, 10 October 2015

Over the past three decades, governments in developed countries have made many
commitments to reduce a specific quantity or percentage of greenhouse gases by a specific
date, but often they have failed to implement effective climate policies that would achieve
their commitment. Fortunately, energy-economy analysts can determine well in advance of
the target date if a government is keeping its promise. In this 2015 climate policy report
card, I evaluate the Canadian government’s emission commitments and policy actions. I
find that in the nine years since its promise to reduce Canadian emissions 20% by 2020 and
65% by 2050, the Canadian government has implemented virtually no polices that would
materially reduce emissions. The 2020 target is now unachievable without great harm to
the Canadian economy. And this may also be the case for the 2050 target, this latter
requiring an almost complete transformation of the Canadian energy system in the
remaining 35 years after almost a decade of inaction.

Canadian Climate Policy Report Card: 2015BackgroundA critical challenge to preventing the harms from human-produced greenhouse gas emissions,
especially CO2 from burning fossil fuels, is that elected representatives face weak incentives to
implement effective climate policies and strong incentives to implement no or ineffective
policies. There are several reasons.

First, significant CO2 emissions reductions require ‘compulsory policies’ – regulation of
technologies and energy forms and/or pricing of CO2 emissions – and these are seen to cause
immediate costs for some even though the long-term benefits for society exceed these costs.
These immediate costs would begin during the mandate of current politicians, and have
significant political risks, while the benefits of avoiding climate change will mostly occur after
the career of current political leaders.